Evolution of the structure of viscoelastic liquid media upon pulse volume tension

It is shown experimentally that the unbounded bubble cavitation in a highly viscous liquid (glycerin) can develop only in a regime of very slow volume tension of a liquid sample. Upon pulse volume tension, cavitation in the sample damps at the initial stage (the bubbles do not reach pronounced sizes) and fragmentation occurs because of perturbations generated on its free surface. The mechanism of bubble growth from micropores in a thixotropic medium (gel) is explained based on experimental results and theoretical estimates.